About the Wallowa Valley Arts Council

The Wallowa Valley Arts Council has a rich history of leading, promoting, and strengthening the Arts. Join us as we continue to work with our community partners to bring an enthusiastic array of visual images, music, dance, and theater to our valley for your enjoyment, enrichment, and edification.

Serving as Your Umbrella Organization

Incubation: WVAC takes great pride in having served as a temporary incubator and fiscal agent through the years for some of our valley’s most outstanding arts agencies including Fishtrap, Brass@Wallowa Lake, Woodwinds@Wallowa Lake and most recently the private nonprofit titled The Josephy Center for the Arts and Culture located on Main Street, Joseph. We are happy to facilitate local arts-related groups with short-term needs to receive donations and grant funding while seeking their own independent status.

Partnerships and Sponsorships: WVAC provides partnerships on a long-term basis for agencies such as the Wallowa Valley Festival of Arts, Night of Quick Draw, the Wallowa County Cultural Trust Coalition and the Wallowa Mountain Quilters' Guild. These agencies are financially self-determinate under our umbrella, while taking advantage of our group benefits. We also directly fund annual events as part of our own agency such as the Missoula Children’s Theater and the Youth Arts Festival, both of which have been ongoing since the 1980’s.

Over the years we have funded arts-related professional development workshops and sponsored entertainment events such as African dancers, Taiko Drummers, the Eugene Ballet, the Montana Repertory Theater, the Melodrama in Joseph, the Wallowa Lake Chamber Music Festival, and the Wallowa County Fiddlers Show, just to name a few. And we continue to seek future opportunities to partner with local agencies to enrich our public with a creative infusion of cultural education and diversity.

Essential Benefits: Join up with us! The Wallowa Valley Arts Council provides a long list of essential “behind the scenes” benefits to our partners. These include general budget oversight, matching funds for granting opportunities, scholarships, paid professional bookkeeping and year-end tax preparation and filing, maintenance of our nonprofit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, website access and direct links, advertising brochures and rack cards, Wallowa County Chamber and Eastern Oregon Regional Arts Council group membership dues, and coordination for event liability insurance coverage.

Grants and Matching Funds: For over thirty years, our Council has provided matching money and received grants for events and community improvement projects such as stage lighting at the Enterprise-located OK Theater, and display track lighting for the Joseph Community Center. Presently, we have a fund solely dedicated to the advancement of Music for youth. This money creates another ideal opportunity to match funds for future grants and projects.

As always, we welcome your ideas and participation as we continue to grow our organization and tackle ever-widening spheres to advance the Arts in our communities.

Collaborating With Us

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, WVAC and its team of volunteers has established an enduring track record of credibility and has fostered a successful working relationship with our schools, local government, private businesses, and fellow regional and local nonprofits. We are a community of people with common interests who know that we are indeed greater than the sum of our parts. We welcome your ideas and look forward to working with you.

Schools: Since the 1980’s, WVAC has coordinated program development within our valley-wide school districts to enrich arts education for students grades K-12. We have sponsored the Artists in Residence program, the Artists in the Schools project, the annual Missoula Children’s Theater, the annual Youth Arts Festival, the Eagle Cap Fine Arts Camp, and provided scholarships for student participation in various opportunities including the Brass and Woodwinds @ Wallowa Lake programs.

Regional: By joining forces with other major arts agencies in NE Oregon, the Wallowa Valley Arts Council has taken a lead role with Baker, Union, Umatilla, and Wallowa Counties to secure joint grant funding opportunities at the State and Federal levels. These regional collaborations recognize the value of leveraging the Arts to promote and maintain our vibrancy and economic stability.

Local: Today, Wallowa Valley Arts Council is actively collaborating with other long-standing nonprofits in the City of Joseph including the Joseph City Council, Joseph Public Library, Joseph Chamber of Commerce, Joseph Charter School, Wallowa County Museum, Wallowa Valley Festival of Arts, and Chief Joseph Days Rodeo, Inc. With the technical assistance of a local grant writer, a community facilitator and an architectural design firm, we are serving as fiscal agent and arts advisor to evaluate community development and facilities needs, again serving as a willing, all-volunteer team player.

Incorporation and Nonprofit

The Wallowa Valley Arts Council is a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt, private nonprofit organization which was incorporated in 1983 to “act as a coordinating, educational, and service organization to foster, promote, encourage, and increase the knowledge, appreciation, and practice of the arts.” Our by-laws state, “The mission of the Wallowa Valley Arts Council is to advance and promote the state of all of the arts in Wallowa County.” Over the years, our hundreds of dedicated volunteers have entertained us, cultivated our talents, enriched our environment and economy, and nurtured our young creative thinkers.

Meeting Times and Places

The WVAC Board of Directors normally meets monthly, the second Monday, 5:30 p.m. at The Outlaw Restaurant, 108 N Main Street, Joseph, 541-432-4321, www.theoutlawrestaurant.com. We invite you to join us for a brief dinner, meeting agenda, and share with us your ideas and proposals. To confirm definite time, date, and place please contact Shelley Curtiss, Pres. WVAC, or another board member.

Because we want your input, our meeting place could change to various locations in the County. If you would like us to schedule a meeting nearer to you, contact us and let us know!

Memberships and Donations

We highly value your membership participation and monetary support. This allows us to sponsor annual events such as the Missoula Children’s Theater and Youth Art Festival, provide basic expense support for our partners, and apply for grants with matching funds.

What we offer you as a member is a role in supporting our arts community with tax-deductible donations, a voice in developing policies and priorities, networking possibilities, artist opportunity alerts, and inclusion in our Artist Directory Listing on our website.